SARI: Social Attitudes Research for India

UPIASI is partnering with r.i.c.e., a research institute for compassionate economics, to carry out SARI, a first-of-its-kind phone survey about social attitudes in India. Inspired by a growing body of research that shows both changing and enduring social attitudes about caste membership, religious group identity, and women’s issues, this phone survey will ask a representative group of respondents in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh their opinions on questions of public and private importance with respect to Dalits, Muslims, and women. We will also attempt to measure perceptions of discrimination faced by members of these groups.

Many of our questions build on the social attitudes research pioneered by the General Social Survey in the United States, which has studied changing attitudes about race and gender issues for decades. Although the SARI phone survey is initially planned to be representative of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, we hope to gain the experience needed in these two regions to expand the survey to other states and cities, which would allow for cross-regional comparison.